His grin vanishing, the man leaned forward alertly. “Is it war news? Of Edric Jarl’s men?”
Before her tongue could move, Randalin’s surprised face had answered. The warrior smote his thigh resoundingly.
“You will be able to tell us tidings we wish to know. Since the fight this morning we have been allowed to do no more than growl at the English dogs across the plain, because it was held unadvisable to make an onset until the Jarl’s men should increase our strength. It is to be hoped they are not far behind?”
“You make a mistake,” Randalin began hesitatingly. “My news does not concern the doings of Edric Jarl, but the actions of his man Norman—”
A blow across her lips silenced her.
“Hold your tongue until you come in to the Chief,” the man admonished her, with good-humored severity. “Have you not learned that babbling turns to ill, you sprouting twig? And waste no more time upon the road, either. Yonder is your shortest way, up that lane between the barley. When you come to a burned barn, do you turn to the left and ride straight toward the woods; it should happen that an old beech stock stands where you come out. Take then the path that winds up-hill, and it will bring you to the war booths before you can open your foolish mouth thrice. Trolls! what a cub to send a message by! But get along, now; you will suffer from their temper if they think it likely that you have kept them waiting.” He gave the horse a stinging slap upon the flank, that sent him forward like a shaft from a bow.
Snatching up her slackened rein with one hand, his rider managed to secure her leaping cap with the other; and after the first bounce, she caught the jerky gait instinctively and swayed her body into its uneven swing. But her heart was all at once a-throb in a wild panic. Was this what a boy must expect? This challenging brutal downrightness, which made one seem to have become a dog that must prove his usefulness or be kicked aside? Her spirit felt as bruised as a fledgeling fallen upon stony ground. She shivered as the old beech stock loomed up before her.
“If these other men behave so, it is in my mind to tell them that I am a woman,” she decided. “Since they are my own people, no evil can come of their knowing; and I dislike the other feeling.”
The recollection that she had always this escape open gave her a new lease of boldness. Her courage rose as fast as her body when they began to climb the hillside toward the ruddy light that slanted down between the tree-trunks. When a sentinel stopped her near the top, she faced him with a fairly firm front.
“I have war news for King Canute,” she told him haughtily; and he let her pass with no more than a grin.